Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

The Public Service Alliance of Canada is committed to ensuring that workplaces are equitable and fair. This means that we view human rights in the workplace as an essential element in our mandate to represent our members.

The duty to accommodate is an essential principle in our approach to human rights. Due to a Supreme Court of Canada decision (Meiorin, September 1999) this concept has been radically changed in a very positive way. Previously, the duty to accommodate meant the right of a group or individual to have a specific situation modified in a manner that did not change the basic elements of the situation, but did allow the group or individual to fully operate within that situation. In the workplace, reasonable accommodation involved specific legal rights and responsibilities and was a reactive response to individual or group discrimination.

Employers, and Unions, were legally required to take reasonable actions to eliminate the effects of employment practices or rules that discriminated against individuals or groups on the basis of a prohibited ground, such as race, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation and so on.

The Duty to accommodate: A PSAC guide for Local Representatives is available for download here (pdf).

The DTA is usually thought of in relation to disability, but it relates to all grounds of discrimination found under human rights legislation, including culture, religion, family status and so on. The Guide is set up as a Question and Answer document. Laws change at a rapid pace and the document will be updated from time to time.